Cognitive Psychology

O.P. Jindal Global University via Coursera

Go to class Write review

Details

Go to class

Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Certificate

Certificate Available
Effort

12 weeks, 2 hours a week
Sessions

Self-Paced
Level

Beginner
Subtitles

English, Pashto, Farsi

Found in

Overview

Google, IBM & Meta Certificates – 40% Off

One Coursera Plus subscription covers most Professional Certificates on Coursera.

Unlock All Certificates

Understand how the mind works and gain practical insight into the cognitive processes that shape everyday human behavior. Cognitive Psychology is designed for learners interested in psychology, human behavior, neuroscience, education, social sciences, or related fields who want to understand how people perceive, remember, communicate, reason, and make decisions. Explore key areas of cognitive psychology, including visual perception, attention, short-term and working memory, long-term memory, language, reasoning, problem-solving, decision-making, emotion, and cognition in the digital world. Learn how cognitive psychology research is conducted through scientific methods, experiments, psychobiological research, self-report measures, case studies, naturalistic observation, and research ethics. Apply cognitive theories to real-world situations, examine perceptual illusions and cognitive biases, and develop a deeper understanding of how memory, attention, emotion, and reasoning influence everyday decisions. You will also explore how internet use, social media, multitasking, and AI are reshaping human cognition and creating new benefits and cognitive challenges. Build a strong foundation in cognitive psychology and develop analytical skills that can support further study and applications across psychology, education, research, and other people-focused fields.

Syllabus

Welcome to Cognitive Psychology
- The Cognitive Psychology course helps students develop an understanding of underlying cognitions processes that govern human behavior. This course examines the cognitive processes that allow us to perceive and attend to the world around us, store information for later retrieval, interact with others, and make decisions before performing actions. Understanding processes involving human mental functions would naturally include discussion topics such as attention, sensation and perception, memory, language, reasoning, and decision making. Students will learn to apply theories and findings to real-world situations and their own cognitive processes. The first module introduces the learners to the fundamental definition of cognition, cognitive psychology and what are the major areas that this field taps into. Understanding how the brain began to be studied within Psychology, to understanding the importance of cognition within the larger domain of Psychology will be covered. Furthermore, historical roots of the field – ranging from introspection as a practice to the entire cognitive revolution in the field would be taught to the learners.
Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology
- Psychology research specially the research in Cognitive Psychology relies on systematic methods to study behavior and mental processes. Observation involves watching and recording behavior in natural or controlled settings to identify patterns without interfering. Experimental methods involve manipulating one variable (independent) to observe its effect on another (dependent), allowing researchers to draw conclusions about causality under controlled conditions. Psychobiological research provides concrete evidence about behaviour whereas self-report measures provide recollection of own cognition. In this module you will also explore case-study methods, and research ethics involving human participants.
Visual Perception - I
- The present module with engage in developing a theoretical and applicative understanding of visual perception, ranging from topics like bottom-up and top-down processing and majorly exploring gestalt principles in detail. The process of how sensation works in association to perception will also be discussed in the module.
Visual Perception - II
- Continuing on what was built up in the previous module, the present module will further explore visual perception, taking in consideration constructivist and Gibsonian approaches, and parallel distributed processing approach in relation to visual understanding of the world.
Attention
- This module will cover the concept of attention, or the process by the virtue of which individuals select a few stimuli to focus on, out of multiple ones available in their environment. Theories of attention (Broadbent, Triesman, etc.) will be explored, along with controlled and automatic attentional processes. Application of these principles in real life will also be navigated in discussions.
Short-term and Working Memory
- A very crucial element of cognition is Memory and how people store and retrieve information. This module will allow learners to understand the most prominent model of Memory – Atkinson and Shiffrin’s Stage model of memory. Furthermore, concepts like working memory and various control processes will also be touched upon.
Long Term Memory - I
- This module takes a deeper dive into the concept of Long-Term Memory and explores the various forms of it – episodic, semantic and procedural memories. It also talks about how memory storage is dependent on encoding specificity, retrieval cues, etc.
Long Term Memory - II
- This module, in continuation to previous one, elaborates upon the nature and reasons of forgetting – both psychological (trace, decay and interference theories) and physiological (i.e., amnesia).
Language
- This module allows learners to enter into the space of ‘language’ from a cognitive lens and understand the smallest units of language (morpheme and phoneme). It also dives into how language is comprehended, produced and understood. Moreover, the module will also open up conversation on theories of language (Chomsky, Sapir–Whorf, connectionist models) and see how culture also shapes language.
Reasoning, Decision-making and Problem Solving
- This module opens up topics like reasoning, problem solving and cognitive biases. Being very applicative in nature, the module asks learners to constantly reflect upon their own lives and see how in everyday behavior, they tend to use these cognitive principles and biases. Lastly, concept of creative thinking will also be looked into.
Emotion and Cognition
- This module looks into the relationship between emotion and cognition. It dwells into discussions around emotional influence on earlier studied concepts like attention, memory and decision-making. Giving due importance to emotions while understanding cognitive processes becomes crucial, when dealing with social situations.
Cognition in the Digital World
- The last module, being highly applicative, will look into the present trends in the field of cognitive psychology, especially those pertaining to internet and digital media. The impact of internet and A.I. on cognition and cognitive load will be studied, while navigating how multi-tasking has become a norm, thanks to fast-paced internets. Lastly, the relation of social media and self-concept will be evaluated.